Marionette Company

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This game is great, but will you have problems importing it? Find out in our updated preview

By IGN Staff

Since writing our initial preview of Marionette Company, I've finally been able to experiment with the final release just a bit more, playing with the communication aspect, as well as the notion of upgrading your Marionette. The biggest question out there for the avid importing fans concerns whether or not you'll be able to play through the game, despite the language barrier. It turns out that the game's simple interface, informative instruction manual, and often easy language use (the Marionette is, afterall, the equivalent of a kid), makes this title one of the easier language-heavy imports out there.

One of the coolest conversations I had with my Marionette concerned the way in which she ought to greet people. When I return home from work (in the game, not in real life), I always say "Tada-ima," which is the normal thing to say in the Japanese culture. The Marionette asked me what she's supposed to respond, and I, of course, told her to say "O-kaeri-nasai," which is, again, the normal thing to say (this Tada-ima, O-kari-nasai thing is, by the way, the most over-used phrase when trying to establish an emotionally charged scene in Japanese dramas). The Marionette repeated the "O-kaeri-nasai" phrase a couple of times, then gained an inquisitive look on her face. She commented (in Japanese), "Isn't 'nasai' the kind of thing someone would say when issuing a command?" Of course, she was right, as "nasai" is the ending for verbs when giving a command to someone.

I suppose the reason I liked that conversation so much was that I understood it. In fact, it's turned out that I've been able to understand quite a bit of what's being said in the game, and my Japanese is pretty basic. It seems that the conversations can be understood by anyone with two or three years of Japanese training on hand, along with a couple of good dictionaries.

The section of the game dealing with upgrading your Marionette is just as easy to follow as the conversation parts, primarily due to the informative manual. You can upgrade the Marionette in various ways, including changing her hair, her skin, her voice, her eyes, her C.P.U., and her Operating System type. These upgrades are achieved by purchasing various "elements" from the stores in town after work, and combining them. The instruction manual lists quite clearly which elements can be bought where (it has an easy to follow map), and which elements combine for the proper modifications. You can easily get by without understanding what the various Kanji for the elements translate to, as all you need to do is visually match up the onscreen kanji with the kanji in the manual.

Thankfully, the interface for combining elements into upgrades is dealt with just as easily, and with a little katakana experience, and a few look-throughs in your kanji dictionary, you'll have given your Marionette blue hair in no time.

The element combination part of the game seems like it could be very addictive, as you have limited money with which to buy elements, and you actually have to allocate time to build the parts. Say you get off work at 4:30, and head into town to buy a few elements. You can expect to return home at about 7:00. If you choose to have a couple of conversations with your Marionette, you can expect to loose another hour. So, you end up going into your lab at about 8:00PM, and get to combining elements. It takes one and a half hours to combine the elements for a hair color change, which isn't too much of a problem since you have a full four hours until your midnight sleep time (that's the time at which you're required to sleep, every day). The problem comes about when you try to craft one of the more advanced items, like a Zoom Eye. This item takes a full eight hours to craft, meaning you'll have to split up the work over a period of two or more days.

Weekends are a little different, however, as you don't have to go to work, and thus have all day to do various things like taking the Marionette out to the park or library, and working on your parts. You'll also have to earn money at some point, whether it be through giving your Marionette up for part time jobs (assuming she's properly equipped for the job, of course, something that only happens when you've created appropriate parts for her), or by selling some of the parts that you've created. You also earn money from your job, every Monday.

Seeing as how this game will most likely never appear on American shores, due primarily to the language barrier, if you're at all interested in import games, and you think your Japanese skills are at the appropriate level, you may want to check out Marionette Company.

Let's see. I've spent the past few hours making twelve new movies of WWF Attitude, a game which seems to give confirmation that the N64 can be successfully emulated on the Dreamcast (don't quote me on that, though!). I recently reviewed Speed Devils, a driving title, and I'm all set to review Psychic Force, a fighting game. To put it bluntly, if all I could play were wrestling, fighting, and racing games, I don't think I'd be doing this job for much longer, and I think my interest in gaming would have waned years ago. After all, how many times can you play through games in these genres without feeling the need for something new? Marionette Company, not to be confused in any way with this past Spring's Marionette Handler is most definitely something new.

The game takes place in a futuristic world themed as a nostalgic look at 1965 Japan, where robots, known by the fancy-smanshy name of Marionettes, have become the product of a powerful industry. As a child, you held great dreams of being a Marionette engineer, a profession that would see you raise a Marionette robot from mere computer circuits to a near replica of a human being. For some reason, though, you grew to adulthood, never realizing this dream. And then the fateful day came about when you were walking around through the business district of your home town, and you stumbled upon a Marionette that had been tossed into a pile of trash. She called out to you, "H - H - Help me," in so frail a voice that you couldn't help but feel just a bit sorry for her, despite her being nothing more than a glorified machine. You picked up the box that was housing her tattered body, and took her to a friends home, where the two of you repaired the poor thing over a six month period.

Such is the story behind Marionette Company. The game's concept according to developers Microcabin, is to communicate with and build your robot. From the moment you discover your Marionette in the trash heap, you become her reluctant "Master," taking her into your home, educating her in the ways of proper social behavior, and teaching her the lessons a parent would teach his children. The game takes place over a series of days, with time progressing based on actions you take, and although I'm not sure of it, the goal seems to be for you to make the Marionette into as close a representation of humanity as possible.

You start each weekday off at 6:30, with your heading off to work aboard the bus (you do have to work, since being a Marionette Master is more of a hobby for you than an actual profession). Of course, your Marionette wakes up and sees you off every day, sometimes even cooking breakfast for you. Once you arrive at work, the game makes time automatically pass until 4:00 in the afternoon (you, the player, don't actually do any work - that's not part of the game). From there, you're given free time, where you can do all sorts of different things Among the options available to you are walking around the city, buying parts and upgrades for the Marionette. Microcabin has actually made it so that you move about on a pre-rendered play field when going about the town, moving your characters in an arcadey way; it's not much, but it's certainly a surprise, and a dramatic change of pace from the menu-driven approach of most simulation games.

Instead of exploring the city, you can also head back to your area of residence, where you can visit friends, or explore a bit. The main part of the game comes about when you return home, though, and are given the chance to interact with the Marionette, and modify her in various ways. I haven't been able to play too much with the modifications, but this part seems to consist of your making use of the various parts you purchased during the day. The real area of interest, for me at least, is in the area of communication, where you instruct the Marionette in how to properly converse. You pick a subject of conversation, and the Marionette will speak to you about it, occasionally asking questions. For instance, I asked her to talk about the weather, and midway through her conversation, she asked me which I prefer: the rain, or darkness. Seeing as I wear glasses, and thus have difficulty seeing in the rain (because I take off the glasses so that they don't get wet), I had to answer that I prefer the darkness.

You'll also teach the Marionette how to behave in certain real world situations. This particular example is somewhat strange. The Marionette walks in on you when you're using the toilet. Later, she asks you why humans must use the bathroom, and you of course explain to her how we eat food and, once everything's been turned into energy, need to rid ourselves of the byproducts. The Marionette then comments that she's different from us in that she consumes energy for food, but has no wastes (or something like that). Anyhow, the next day, when you return home, you'll find the Marionette sitting on the toilet, mimicking you. She'll ask how long you're supposed to remain there. It's a humorous, and strangely touching moment.

I'm not sure how much depth there is to the game, as I haven't played it nearly to completion, but I intend to continue playing until my Marionette is all grown up and human like. A word of warning for those planning on importing the game, though, there's quite a bit of Japanese text and voice. If you're not familiar with Japanese, you'll probably find yourself horribly bored, although the game makes things easy by pausing between text boxes to allow you to look things up in dictionaries. Import with this in mind.